


Fireworks

by carsatan



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: But I will not apologize for the feels this may or may not provoke, M/M, this gets really angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7509799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carsatan/pseuds/carsatan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reaper is stranded in the United States during the Fourth of July, the sound of fireworks in the distance send him into an overloaded panic. Soldier 76 is there to comfort him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireworks

**Author's Note:**

> This is from an rp I did on tumblr <3

Reaper hated this time of the year. He didn’t want to be in America when it was happening but Talon was sadistic and left him right where he was. As if it was some kind of punishment for not completing his mission and bringing 76 in like he was suppose too.

Each boom and crack of the fireworks made him flinch. Inside it was horrible but outside it was even worse. The noise, the flashes of light, the vibrations that echoed through his whole body. It made him shake and whimper in misery. 

He had to sit outside, tired of hearing the walls of his safe house shudder. His head was in his claws, digging into his hood and over his ears, as if it would somehow muffle the explosions happening all around him. More explosions and he gave up any pretense of name or reputation and brings up his knees close to his chest.

Reaper just wanted this day to be over. For the explosions to stop and the talons of his past to stop clawing for his awareness.

76 disliked fireworks, well, he disliked the sound of them. They were too much for him, they sounded too much like gunshots, like explosions; like his nightmares.

Deep black ear plugs sat in his ears as he wandered around, also to protect his ears. Getting older did have its disadvantages, loud sounds caused his ears to ring upon impact.

He had heard word of Reaper being sited somewhere around the location earlier, he had been walking around all day long.

It didn’t take too overly long to find him, cuddled up over himself, obviously not being able to withstand the noise of the town’s festivities.

He wore casual clothes, a black skin tight tee shirt with black cargo pants and his usual boots.

76 reached into his pocket, tugging a spare set of ear plugs out, opening the packet and crouching down in front of the other, tapping him on the shoulder gently.

“Gabe,” he called out loudly, trying to be heard over the sound of the fireworks, but, also, didn’t help he couldn’t hardly hear himself over his own earplugs.

Reaper flails like a frightened child, pushing the other away and curling in on himself again. Another boom, another whimper and the masked man began to rock back and forth, mumbling for the sounds to stop and just wanting an escape from all this goddamn noise!

His stress was too high and his body began to lose his form, distorting and flowing about along the places he was no longer solid. He pulled the hood down farther over his mask, hiding his eyes from the light that hurt him and not just physically.

He kept rocking, begging several gods to just free him from this torment.

He wasn’t expecting on being pushed, losing his balance and falling over a bit. 

“Gabe,” he whispered, knowing the other couldn’t hear him.

The Soldier sat down beside him, wrapping his arms around the shivering man, despite him distorting a bit, he tugged him into his lap, wrapping his arms around him firmly.

“Gabe, put these in,” he insisted, trying to pry the others hands away from his hood so he could hand him the earplugs, or at least, put them in in on his own, which he would absolutely do if he needed to.

Reaper- Gabriel, screamed and weakly fought the soldier. But it was short lived as taking his hands off his head just made everything louder and he had to snatch them back where they were.

Words were coming from him that he could not control, more than just begging for it to stop but it was hard for even the wraith to hear over the display going on. Gabriel kept trying to rock and speak and do anything to take his mind off the sound.

Several large fireworks went off and he screamed again, curling into Jack, body shaking hard even as he lost more of his solidity.

The man held onto him firmly, not wanting to accidentally get clawed up by Reaper by mistake. He wasn’t trying to help him, but it was evident the other wasn’t aware of that fact at all.

76 couldn’t hear the other at all, his earplugs nestled in perfectly to his ears.

He sighed and popped them out, tossing them onto the ground besides them so he could at least try to hear Gabe speak.

“Gabe, I got you,” he insisted, holding onto the other firmly, nuzzling his face against the other’s shoulder as he did so.

The words were a jumble of Spanish and English. “I didn’t-” “Please stop” “I’msorry” were most of the English words he was able to get out.

His breathing was coming harder and harder and he finally had to rip off his mask, throwing it away so he could breathe. His lungs were on fire and he just couldn’t get the oxygen he needed. No matter that it actually didn’t matter for him now, the feeling still gripped him and caused a panic.

His claws curled against Jack and tried to pull him closer. “Jack. Jack!” he cried, writhing in phantom pain.

“It’s alright Gabe, I have you, I got you and I’m not letting go,” he promised him, clutching him tightly, bare hands gripping onto the sweater that Gabe was wearing. 

“Calm down, it’s fine, you’re safe, I promise, I won’t let you get hurt, I promise,” he assured him, a small smile on his face as he spoke.

More fireworks went off, music beginning to play to compliment the display. A lull in the fireworks and Gabriel snaps.

He grabs Jack’s front, looking up at him with brown, smoky eyes. “Jack! The-the base! Charges! They set-! They’re everywhere! I can’t-” He shakes Jacks shoulder, clawed fingers digging into skin and panic radiating off the wraith about as prominent as the smoke. “You have to get out! Get everyone and get out! Don’t fight me! Please you have-!” 

Explosions rock around him. The ceiling was falling in. Everything was burning. He could hear people running and screaming. The smell of burning flesh and metal. Pain. He was pinned. He couldn’t move! His arms were burning! Everything was burning! Everyone was dying! 

The show reached a crescendo, hundreds of fireworks going off all at once and Gabriel shrieked. 

Gabriel grabs Jack and flees in wraith form from the sounds and flashes of light and color, taking the old soldier with him. Normally, this form moved slowly, moving like a gentle breeze. In the throes of panic, he moved them both with the force and speed of a gale wind, moving faster and faster through the town, into the city and the deserted warehouse district.

The window came up too fast and Gabriel just managed to solidify milliseconds before hitting it, sending both soldiers flying through the empty working area. Jack landed hard but Gabriel ended up skidding down farther, hitting a rack of metal beams that teetered and then fell on top of him.

This wasn’t Gabe, this wasn’t the Gabe he knew. 

It was then that 76 realized how far down the path Gabe had fallen, stress and obvious PTSD was now bubbling its way to the surface.

“Gabe, Gabe calm down, calm down Gabe please, it’s okay it’s fine you’re safe I promise.”

His eyes widened as he realized what it was that Gabe was thinking about. Back all those years ago, in Switzerland. The explosion, he was referring to the explosion that had nearly killed Jack, and had killed Gabe in the process, before he was turned into Reaper.

He gasped as he was tugged along, perhaps this was for the best, they needed to get out of the area, but, it was evident that Gabe was not okay. He was not alright, he was panicking, and panicking in this type of situation would only make it that much worse.

He shouted loudly as he hit the ground, back popping and his shoulder cracking hard upon the impact. He grit his teeth as he rolled over, trying to move it, but it was obviously dislocated at this point, having too much force going in one direction pulled it right out of its socket. 

“Gabe!” He shouted loudly, getting up with one arm, cradling his bad one with his good one as he sprinted over to the beams, prying them off of the other one at a time, teeth still grit as he tried to bear the pain of  
his shoulder. He had no biotic fields on him, he didn’t think he would need them to merely go see some fireworks.

Gabriel was still shaking, the episode not quite done with him. He was curled in on himself, a few of the thinner beams having pierced his arm and leg. 

“Get out. Get out. You need to get out. Get everyone out.” he kept whimpering, hands clutching at his head and eyes wide and wild. “It’s burning. It’s all burning. It hurts. It hurts! Jack! Jack it hurts!” The hood of his coat had fallen, his smoke form still unstable and getting worse now. 

Reaper, when he finally realizes what was happening, would deny anything pertaining to this moment of weakness. Vehemently deny that he had called for Jack in those last moments. That he called for his friend, hoping against hope that he had survived and was able to get out of the Swiss Base with his life.

“Gabe, Gabe, snap out of it, come on Gabe, we’re fine. We’re in America, not Switzerland,” he insisted, trying to assist the other out with only one hand.

“Gabe, it happened ages ago, it’s not happening now. Look at me Gabe,” he insisted, crouching down. “I’m years past my youth, it’s in the past now,” his eyebrows knit together. 

He removed his mask.

“Gabe, look at me. We’re fine.”

Well, he was fine, Gabe on the other hand, no so much. He was completely freaking the fuck out and 76 had no clue what to do about it.

Gabe wasn’t in any state to help 76 get him out of the mess of metal. His litany continued, though he was no longer screaming. Only shaking and clutching at himself, still trapped in that one moment that he could not remember clearly any other time.

It’s wasn’t until Gabriel saw jacks face, his real face that he went silent. Red was spreading through the brown again, creeping into his eyes like a virus of blackness. “Jack.” Tears start rolling down his face, fading  
into smoke as they trailed down. “It….It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.” His clawed hand clings to 76′s arms, curling forward and hiding his face.

At least the sounds had stopped.

76 sighed, crouching down before completely lying down on the frigid warehouse floor besides the other. 

“Shh, it’s okay Gabe, that was a long time ago, it’s fine. We’re both fine, we’re here right now, together, and alive,” he insisted. Gabe wasn’t exactly alive, but, he wasn’t going to say that. 

“It’s fine Gabe, breathe, focus on my voice Reyes,” he said gently reaching out and holding onto the other.

It took a while, but eventually Gabriel does stop shaking. His eyes go back to pinpricks of red in black and he stares off into nothing. Computing all that just happened to him and compartmentalizing everything to be forgotten to protect what sanity he had left.

He was like that for a while. Just breathing and steadily relaxing in Jack’s arms.

The first sign he was back in the now was the rapid blinking and confusion that covered his slowly decaying face. When he locks onto 76, he frowns.

“What are you doing?” He grunts and brings a hand to cover his face. “What the hell did you do to me? My head is pounding.”

Immediately 76 lets go of the other, backing away. The last thing he needs is to get shot, worried the other might suddenly turn on him.

“Gabe, calm down. You had a panic attack. You brought us here,” he insisted, standing up and going over to a near wall, body slamming it and crying out loudly as his shoulder slid back into its socket.

He grit his teeth as he worked his shoulder a bit, not at 100% yet, but, it would have to do for now, at least he could move it slightly.

Boots carried him back over to the other, crouching down, making sure to keep his distance. His pistol was strapped to his thigh as usual, he didn’t use it often, but it was a nice back up, just in case.

“Breathe Gabe, just breathe.”

Reaper grimaces, looking around at where he was and trying to piece together what exactly happened. He must have hurt 76 on the way here as well if all that grunting was anything to go by. 

The wraith turns and slowly gets up on his knees. He was outside. He remembered that. There was a lot of fireworks going on at all sides and it stressed him out. Fireworks…..fireworks….. he must have freaked out pretty bad since he couldn’t hear them anymore now.

He looks the soldier up and down, then looks away. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, just, stay calm, don’t need you freaking out again,” he smiled, pulling the other into a gentle hug, his one arm still a bit sore, so it kind of just loosely held onto Reaper.

“We’re away from the fireworks now Gabe, you’re going to be fine,” he whispered gently.

“Stop saying ‘stay calm’. You’re just going to make me more nervous.” But he wasn’t feeling freaked out at least. Fucking Talon. Next time they can all suck a dick and he’s going to just leave the country. Why he didn’t do that to begin with will be something he contemplates later.

Normally, he would fight the other away from him but the closeness was calming and Reaper wasn’t ready to leave just yet. “Are…you alright?”

“Yes, but I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about you,” he insisted, squeezing the other’s shoulders a bit. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, eyebrow raised a bit, wanting to make sure that he was completely back to normal before he tried to move them around a bit, or sit outside. Last thing they needed is to be spotted by a Security Camera.

“I’m fine.” The concern was starting to wear on his nerves. Not like the fireworks but still making him want to…do something. “So stop treating me like I’m broken. I’m fine.’ And yet he didn’t shake of the man’s hand on his shoulder.

Honestly, he’d killed for less and yet Jack just got up under his dead skin and did things to him. It was annoying and he would be glad for it to be over and done with when the old soldier dies.

“Keep acting like this and I’ll leave you here you god damn child, I’m worried about you, quit acting like a complete ass,” 76 spat, glaring over at the other, popping his mask back on.  
“You do that anyway. Not like anything would change.” Reaper liked when the masks went back on. Everything felt so exposed when they were off. “I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me?”

He remained silent, he didn’t exactly know what he wanted from the other. 

His visor re-calibrated, immediately telling him Reaper’s weakened points, attacking now would give him a hard advantage. He reached for the pistol on his thigh, he could end this right here, right now. It would be the perfect opportunity. But, today is not the day for fighting, it’s the Fourth of July. And, he was above attacking when a man was down. 76 let go of the pistol, glaring over at the other.

“I want you back,” he finally said.

“No. You want Gabriel back.” Reaper got up on his feet, watching the other leave him there. Old wounds were slashed open and left to bleed again. “Gabriel isn’t coming back. You killed him. Accept it.”

“Gabriel did this to himself!” He shouted loudly. “I didn’t force him down that path, I had nothing to do with it! Gabe was jealous I got all the attention and he got squat in return. I didn’t push him through the door of Blackwatch, and I sure as hell didn’t tell him to go join Talon. Gabriel is dead, I realize that. But, he killed himself with his own choices and suffered the consequences, and he drug me down with him as he crashed and burned.”

“You had all the power! In that one moment when they names you, you could have stepped aside and given that position to the one person who really earned it! They only wanted you at the head so they could control you and they did!” Reaper stepped up and got right into the others face. “What did playing the diplomat get you? What did getting results get Gabriel?”

“I worked just as hard for my position! Gabe had Blackwatch, I had Overwatch, we were god damn equals!” He shouted loudly, hands gritting together into fists. 

“We were fucking equals,” he spat, repeating himself for extra measure. “Gabe was basically Strike Commander of Blackwatch, yes, I was a notch ahead of him, but he had his own thing too! He was fucking greedy, and the higher ups saw it coming. They were smart not to give Gabriel the position of Strike Commander. The world idolized the blonde farmboy from Indiana, that’s not my fucking fault.”

76 stared at the man directly in front of him.

“Gabe got what he had coming, he let greed and anger take over his life, becoming obsessed with nothing but revenge and not caring about the outcome, or how many people he had to hurt to get here. He became a monster, a terrorist, and an enemy of the world, and of myself. 

Gabriel should have died in that explosion, just like I have. The grave couldn’t hold either of us.”

His claws sink into swaths of fabric. It rips under his rage as he pulls its owner close and almost off their feet. Smoke billowed from the monsters body, as if he was alight within and the fire had been stoked.

“We were never equals.” Comes the response through gritted fangs. The rage was changing him, turning him into the monster his soul had morphed into. What he believed he was. “The world idolized you, yes, but you could never live up to the expectations. You bent under them. Gave in to demands without even putting up a fight.”

“You think it was greed? Greed had no place where I was. Blackwatch was nothing but the refuse and freaks. Given to me to temper and for what? To do more thankless, tireless work? Work harder and harder just to see everything I built be destroyed by Overwatch and their damn pandering?!” Now he was rising 76 up off the ground. 

“You were so preoccupied with keeping the peace that you didn’t even know what the price of keeping it was!!! I did and I kept it and at every turn I was questioned! At ever decision I was judged! Men and women under my command died for the peace they wanted, for the control they strived for AND FOR WHAT?!”

“FOR YOU TO TAKE ALL THE CREDIT AND NONE OF THE BLAME!”

Reaper tosses 76 away from him, his whole body just demon smoke and red hot ash. “You were always beneath me.”  
The man held onto the other, just in case if he tried to get any closer, he could keep him at a decent distance to kick him.

“I led my agents to victory through the Omnic Crisis, I ended it all. I made everything right, I lived up to my expectations. Yes, I made mistakes, but, I did my duty, I led the war, I led the agents, and I led us straight into Victory’s arms with minimal consequences.”

“Blackwatch was a great thing and we both fucking knew it, we needed a Black Ops group to take care of the rest of the shit that the world was throwing at us. No, you couldn’t go out and tell the world what you had done, but, it was in your god damn contract with Blackwatch, I didn’t force you to take that god damn position. If you were really deserving of the position of Strike Commander, they would have given it to you instead of me.”

He grunted as he scrambled backwards, feet stumbling as he fell backwards, head cracking on the cement beneath them both. 

“We were fucking equals, always have been, even now, we’re god damn equals Reaper. I led Overwatch, you led Blackwatch. No one made you stay, you could have left at any time, so don’t you dare try to pin this  
blame on me. I was a great leader, anyone, besides you, can vouch for that. Even those in Blackwatch preferred me over you, Jesse included,” he glared up at the other. 

“And even now, we are equals, just on complete opposite sides. If I’m truly beneath you, then take the upper hand. You have it right now. Kill me Gabriel Reyes, if you truly are superior, you would take the shot.”

Reaper snarls and pulls out a shotgun, aiming it with deadly accuracy at the soldiers head. He was right at how easy it would be for Reaper to kill him. So easy. So simple.

It was the bit about Jesse that catches him off guard. What makes him hesitate

Jesse was the one kid that he recruited that he had loved. He loved Jesse like a son. Family he wasn’t able to have. Someone he could train, to give all his knowledge and wisdom so he could take his place. So he could leave and make the one decision that was still his.

“You think it was my choice to be in Blackwatch? You think I could have left it? Jack. You know what black ops is. No one walks away. No one leaves breathing. I was placed there because I was to them uncontrollable. It was that or a bullet to the brain. I had. No. Choice.”

“I took what I was given. I tried. But you were always there. Questioning like they were questioning. You were supposed to be my friend but you turned into an obstacle to be obliterated.”

“I could have gotten you out of it all Reaper, you know I could have, I would have gotten you out, and someone far far away from them. I could have kept you safe,” he insisted. 

He would have done anything for Gabriel, it wasn’t his fault though that he had been promoted, what would he have looked like if he had turned it down, arrogant? Cocky?

“Then obliterate me Reaper, finish your mission, it’s gone on for years now. Take the shot, this is a perfect opportunity. Enough bark and no bite, you say you are going to kill me for a long time, yet, you never act on it. Just finish the mission Reaper,” he spat, glaring up at him from behind his visor, glaring right down the barrel of that infamous shotgun. 

He is suddenly still. Options are weighed in rapid fire. Consequences, regrets, second thoughts, resolve. All gone through his head in the span of a millisecond.

Reaper pulls away the shotgun in a quick shrug, broken smile on his face and surrender in his eyes. “Let’s be honest. We all knew it was going to end this way.” The gun was raised, point blank at the man’s chest. 

His friend. His mission.

His end.

The trigger is pulled. The gun fires.

The end is here.

The Soldier shivered at the feeling of the weight of the gun against his chest. 

“Thank you, Gabe,” he whispered, muffled through his mask as he gazed up at the other. Death had finally come for him, he had cheated it once before, this was time. It was finally here for him. The end was here.  
He thought back at all the decisions had led up to this. He regretted it all. This wasn’t worth it, over something as stupid as a promotion.

The shot echoed loudly throughout the room as he slumped back, red immediately staining his jacket, seeping onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. Still patriotic, even in death, still remaining true to the red, white, and blue; the colors of freedom. 

Time moved slowly, vision blurring. It didn’t hurt, or maybe it did, he wasn’t sure. His last few breaths labored, body throwing itself into overdrive. But, his mind was calm. He knew this was how it was meant to be. 

He was finally free. And on such a patriotic holiday.

The end is here.

He watches the blood pool. Hears the life leave the man. Sees as the life coalesces into an orb of pure energy just above the body it left.

He laughs.

He laughs hard and long and whirls about as if all this had been a display in a gladiatorial arena and he its sole survivor. Whatever sanity he claimed, whatever grounding he had, it was all gone. Every reason he had to hold himself back was gone. Every choice of ending his existence was forever blown away like the heart of the man on the floor before him.

The soul was his and Reaper falls to his knee’s before the orb of life and opens his mouth and closes his eyes. Peace, spring rain, a clear cool day. It’s not like the other kisses he shared with the man before. This time it was all consuming. Wrapping around him in blanket of blue.

The smile fades, the blue sinks deep and sticks like paint against his inky black. Memories of unrequited love and hopeless pining. His eyes open and they are no longer red but the blue of the powerful, all-encompassing soul he just consumed.

No. Not consumed. Melded with. It was- Jack was a part of him now.

And suddenly the realization.

He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t cry. He just sits there. On his knees, almost straddling the dead soldier.

‘Was it worth it?’ Jack asks him, the voice pulling his mind back from the brink of pure insanity. Grounding him like he had before. 

“No.”


End file.
